'We are receiving 1,000 calls daily,' ERAN head tells 'Post' Trauma Conference

ERAN has over 1,800 volunteers in 13 branches throughout the country and 4 branches in North America and Australia. ERAN's volunteers are well-trained to analyze and identify the difficulties that callers are describing. Koren says that on average, ERAN volunteers end up saving the lives of three or four callers each day, through their calm and steady assistance.

The organization was established in 1971, and over the years, it has handled over 7 million calls. Since the attack of October 7th, ERAN has received more than 530,000 calls, far more than the annual average of about 300,000. Calls come in via phone, internet chat, WhatsApp, SMS, and email on a 24/7 basis, and volunteers in the US and Australia help in the late evening hours in Israel by answering a significant number of calls.

Koren said the types of calls that are coming in are unlike those from other periods in Israel’s history. “There is no way to compare it to any other time in the past, because the length of this war is so long, the number of days that the reserves are serving, and the amount of distress and loneliness and despair that we are getting from the calls.”

ERAN is currently building an emergency operations and training center in Netanya to bring additional volunteers to handle calls and for training. Koren added that the organization is currently in the process of training a further 200 volunteers who are urgently needed. “We need the support of many people to support ERAN, especially nowadays, because our mission is much bigger than we can fulfill without assistance,” he concluded.